How far back does dirty play go?

[David Bruce Banner]

This is some of the earliest footage that I can find of "dirty play".

The Habs' Bernie Geoffrion engages in a stick fight with the Rangers' Ron Murphy

 

[ElysiumAB]

Fighting isn't "allowed", it's a penalty.

Fights happen in other sports.

 

[Clode]

Dirty hockey started the second the puck got dropped for the first time

 

[The Macho King]

Sprague Cleghorn makes Eddie Shore look like a choir boy.

 

[BruinsBtn]

Rocket Richard punched out a referee and Habs fans rioted because the NHL had the gall to suspend him for it.

 

[ClydeLee]

Fighting isn't "allowed", it's a penalty.

Fights happen in other sports.

I'm going to assume English isn't your first language.

Fighting is met with removal from the entire game in all the other NA team sports. Why?

But why did that not become how they did it in hockey? I think that's a root point being asked but for some reason people are all giving it sass. I guess it's a better thread for the history section though.

 

[Silky mitts]

Dan Carcillo was the last guy that was purely on the ice to injure, everyone now has to have some skill

 

[rfournier103]

“War was always here. Before man was, war waited for him. The ultimate trade awaiting its ultimate practitioner.”

~From Cormac McCarthy’s “Blood Meridian.”

 

[holy]

Chimps tear each other apart limb from limb, I'm sure it started when they put together that MVP movie with the monkey who plays hockey.

 

[Rich Nixon]

I mean, when ice hockey was invented 100 years ago

This is my favorite part of this thread.

 

[ElysiumAB]

Fighting is met with removal from the entire game in all the other NA team sports. Why?

But why did that not become how they did it in hockey? I think that's a root point being asked but for some reason people are all giving it sass. I guess it's a better thread for the history section though.

Not true.

Fights happen in box lacrosse (NA teams) and are handles similar to hockey. Hockey isn't nearly the outlier that the OP is making it out to be.

Low effort OPs bug me as is, I'll never understand how someone would take the initiative to start a discussion thread, but not show enough respect to the user to use punctuation...

 

[Jumptheshark]

Hockey is about 150 years old and dirty play was invented 1 minute latet

 

[newfy]

Lol

Hockey has always been dirty, same with box lacrosse. It must be a Canada thing. Polite and nice except when you put us in a rink

 

[pt_mck]

Romans literally killed each other in sporting events

That was all CGI

 

[FDBluth]

Oh how I long for the battles of yesteryear between Sprague Cleghorn and Newsy Lalonde.

 

[biturbo19]

Dirty play is far older than the game of hockey.

 

[TheAngryHank]

Just before Challis, so when the earth was flat.

 

[sr edler]

Hockey was invented in 1918 by Odie Cleghorn so his brother Sprague could release some of his negative energy in a more "constructive" context.

 

[Yukon Joe]

Thanks for the Sprague Cleghorn material. I'd never heard of him before. Fascinating stuff.

 

[VanIslander]

Frank McGee, HHOFer and the offensive star of the 1903-1906 Stanley Cup dynasty Silver Seven, had to have a cast put on his arm for a broken wrist after the first game of a two-game series. But he knew the opposition would TARGET that arm with slashing if they knew it was injured. So, McGee shrewdly had the doctor put a big cast on his healthy arm and a small cast on his arm with a broken wrist and he simply covered that smaller cast with long sleeves and glove.

The mere fact that he would do that attests to the rough and dirty play of the time.

 

[Kreegz2]

Players used to literally kill each other on the ice in the 1890s and 1900s. Look up the Alcide Laurin or Bud McCourt

 

[Theokritos]

Romans literally killed each other in sporting events

Not really. Prisoners of war and slaves were forced to kill each other in the arena for the entertainment of the Romans.

 

[Sentinel]

I was under the impression that the game started gentlemanly, when amateurs (i.e. rich, idle noblemen) played it. When the game became professional and blue collar men realized a living could be made by playing it, it got progressively more brutal. Those guys were fighting to survive.

 

[MXD]

I was going to namedrop Alcide Laurin but somebody had already done it.

 

[seventieslord]

How far back does hockey go?